


Have You Heard The News? (Bad Things Come In Twos)

by joidianne4eva



Series: The Little Things [1]
Category: RocknRolla (2008)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:15:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joidianne4eva/pseuds/joidianne4eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was something that made Pete stick with Johnny, it wasn't just the drugs but it takes three months and a rehab clinic for either of them to figure what the hell they want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have You Heard The News? (Bad Things Come In Twos)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamswings4](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dreamswings4).



> For dreamswings4 who requested Pete/Johnny. Thanks to Cougar's Catnip for the read through.

Pete didn’t recognize where he was when he finally forced his eyes open. It wasn’t something new though, cause ever since Johnny had disappeared he’d been waking up in strange places. It’s what happened when you walked the streets until you were too tired to find somewhere to hole up for the night and he still hadn’t heard a thing about Johnny either. 

Part of him wanted to just give up, he’d been at it for three months and the jitters had gotten so bad now that he couldn’t remember what it was like to hold himself still. He’d do anything for a hit, even stuff he promised Johnny he wouldn’t cause Johnny wasn’t here now, he was probably actually dead this time around instead of the faking it like he did the last time.

Just the thought of Johnny lying dead somewhere made Pete’s arms itch, the tracks of scars from the dirty needles standing out against the paleness of his skin as he glanced around the room.

All in all this was one of the nicer places he’d ever weaselled himself into. There was an actual bed for one and a door….Pete frowned. If there was a door how had he gotten in? He stared at the dark wood for a while until it warped and bent in his blurry vision.

Then the door opened and Pete almost forgot to breathe when he came face to face with Archy. He’d never talked to Archy himself, but anyone who was anyone and that included the junkies, knew that Archy wasn’t a man to mess with. If Archy was here it meant that Pete was probably going to die…just like Johnny.

For some reason the thought didn’t scare him as much as he thought it would.

*O*

Johnny tapped his fingers against his desk while he waited for Archy to get back. Ever since he’d gotten out of rehab Archy had made sure that Johnny was so freaking deep in the family business that he didn’t know up from down. He knew that Archy was trying to keep him from turning to the drugs again and an active Johnny was a drugless Johnny. It was one of the things he liked about his honorary uncle; the man made it his business to learn how to manage the people around them and most of them were too damn stupid to even notice what was going on.  
But Archy couldn’t keep him busy 24/7 and it was when he was alone that the niggling sense that he’d forgotten something started up again, like a song on repeat but Johnny couldn’t get his brain to slow down long enough to figure what the hell he’d forgotten.

The people in the rehab centre had helped him figure out a few things. Well they’d figured out a few things Johnny already knew but chose to repress because if you were like everybody else nobody looked at you too hard and when people underestimated ya you could rip their throat out and they wouldn’t even notice until they were dead.

Archy had gotten him a real good deal with the rehab and it hadn’t taken the staff there long to figure out that Johnny was a genius, something that he could have told them if they’d asked.

It had been during one of his sessions when he caught himself watching the ass of the male orderly that he realized that maybe the whole ‘can’t stand to be around women for more than a few hours’ thing had a reason behind it other than the fact that they were confusing as hell. So now when he went on the pull, he got birds and blokes. It was a win win situation as far as he was concerned.

The door to his office opened and one of Archy’s protégés stuck his head in.

“Archy says he won’t be making the meeting, Mr Quid.” The kid said and Johnny nodded, his eyes narrowing when the younger man shuffled to the side revealing someone standing in his shadow “He said your guest should keep you occupied for the rest of the day though,” he finished stepping back and shutting the door, leaving the stranger standing in the shadows.

Johnny straightened in his seat “Well come on then, I don’t bite.” He grinned

The figure took a shuffling step forward and Johnny’s eyes widened “Pete?”

Pete cocked his head to the side, a small unsure smile flitting across his face “Hey, John.”

Johnny let his eyes flicker over the clean clothes and skin, Archy had probably made Pete bathe before stepping foot in his car, Pete’s hair was cut shorter than Johnny was used to and there were more scars on his arms but it was Pete, his Pete and fuck it all but Johnny was going to give Archy a damn raise after this one!

*O*

Pete froze when Johnny stood. He hadn’t believed Archy when he said Johnny was still alive but he’d let the man order him into a shower and had dressed in the clothes he’d given him because if there was even a chance of Archy telling the truth Pete wasn’t going to make him regret it and now here he was with Johnny looking at him like he’d thought Pete hadn’t been looking for him all this time.

“You look good, Johnny,” Pete offered up because it was true. Johnny’s glasses were gone but he was in a suit and the dark shadows beneath his eyes were less than they had been the last time Pete had seen him.

“What can I say Pete-boy? Made myself into a real RocknRolla just like I said I was gonna,” Johnny responded, stepping from behind the desk and Pete fought the urge to take a step back like he used to when Johnny was in one of his good moods because that usually ended with him getting another noogie and he was pretty sure Archy would be pissed if he messed up the hairdo.

Johnny stopped in front of him, leaning back against the desk, his eyes glued to the marks on Pete’s arms and for the first time Pete wanted to hide his scars from Johnny, this new Johnny that probably didn’t have time for drugs or druggies and Pete suddenly couldn’t remember why he’d thought coming here was a good idea.

“Pete, what have you been doing to yourself?” Johnny whispered and Pete glanced away because fuck Johnny, he’d just done exactly what he used to…he hadn’t done any of the other stuff just a bit of stealing so that he could get his hits.

“I ain’t done nothing to myself, Mr Quid,” he frowned, glaring at the white of his trainers, why had Archy gotten him white trainers? You couldn’t live on the street with white trainers not unless you planned to sell them. “Ain’t done nothing but look for ya,” 

“And now you’ve found me but I’ll do you one better,” Johnny grinned and Pete risked a glance only to find that this time Johnny’s eyes were on his face “See when I left, I almost got myself killed. Dear Dad wasn’t best pleased with me you see but it worked out and Archy flung my ass in rehab and guess what Pete-boy?”

“What?” Pete mumbled, eying Johnny suspiciously when the man took a step closer

“I found myself in there and it was beautiful, like being high without drugs, Pete!” Johnny laughed and Pete couldn’t resist the smile that tugged at his lips “But I forgot something,” Johnny sighed stopping mere inches away from Pete “Forgot something really important and I almost screwed it all up….”

Pete swallowed past the lump in his throat, he’d seen that look in Johnny’s eyes already but it had always been focused on women and plus it wasn’t right…Johnny had said so!

“I know what I said, Pete, doesn’t mean I wasn’t wrong.” Johnny responded, well aware that Pete didn’t know he was thinking aloud, and Pete jumped when a cold hand brushed against his cheek.

Johnny was always cold.

“I’m gonna show you so many things Pete-boy, gonna make you into a RocknRolla like me.” Johnny whispered, his fingers brushing the skin beneath Pete’s ear, “first, we’re going to get you off the bad stuff, then I’m gonna get you a desk right there,” he pointed to the corner of the room “you’re going to be my assistant and after that….” He trailed off and Pete exhaled slowly,

“What’s going to happen after I get my desk then, Mr Johnny Quid?” Pete inquired and Johnny grinned.

“Whatever you want Pete-boy,”

Pete nodded when Johnny took a step back “And what do you want?”

“Oh me?” Johnny snorted “I wanna rock all night long but Uncle Arch says I’ve got to act like an actual grown up you know? So I keep the rocking to a minimum in the week”

“But you think I can get clean? Because between me and you I don’t think it’s gonna be easy,”

Johnny sighed and pulled himself up onto the table “Sit down, Pete.” He ordered and just like before, when it had just been the two of them on the streets, Pete followed Johnny’s orders without question, perching in the single chair on this side of the desk. “The thing is, Karma don’t like con-men, Pete. She’s a broad that doesn’t fancy you taking the short route to getting what you want; it’s why I lost my painting…”

Pete’s brows furrowed in confusion “But junkies stole the painting, John,”

“That they did, Pete-boy but they wouldn’t have stolen it if I’d bought it fair and square,” Johnny admitted, picking the glass of brandy up off his desk, “Well they wouldn’t have stolen it if you hadn’t so helpfully invited them over either but that ain’t the point here….The point is I now own that painting all because I went to rehab and helped Uncle Arch see the error of his ways when it came to dear old Dad. I took the long road and you’re going to take that road too Pete and after it’s all done you’re gonna look back it and think ‘Well wasn’t my good mate Johnny smart?’”

Pete shook his head, his eyes darting from the painting that now hung behind Johnny’s desk “That’s all good and well for you, Johnny but I can’t. I’ve never not been high, ok? I can’t just give it up.”

Johnny stared at him but didn’t say anything; instead he shrugged out of his jacket and hopped down off the desk.

Pete tensed when Johnny circled him pausing behind his chair as he wrapped his finger around the arms, leaning down so that his lips were in line with Pete’s ear.

“When we were on the streets, who took care of you, Pete?” Johnny inquired and Pete’s eyes dropped to the bejewelled hands resting on the chair’s arms.

“You, Johnny,” he admitted and Johnny hummed

“And when you got yourself into a spot of bother because you couldn’t pay your dealer and he wanted to do all those….” Johnny paused and Pete shivered as his warm breath ghosted across the exposed skin at back of his neck “…dirty little things, who got the wanker to back off?”

“You did,” Pete’s voice was little more than a whisper at this point as he clenched his fingers in his lap, trying hard to ignore the way he was growing hard in his jeans. He wasn’t supposed to! Johnny had told Dave, his dealer, that what he wanted to do was vile so that meant that if Pete hung with him he couldn’t do those things, right? But now Johnny was…Johnny was saying that he wanted to do those things with him, at least that’s what Pete was getting from this whole thing because Johnny wasn’t being clear and it made his head hurt like that time Johnny had tried to explain why the stars hung in the skies.

“That’s right.” Johnny confirmed and something wet and warm flickered across Pete’s ear, there and gone before he could react “And when you’re in one of those rooms upstairs, sweating and crying for your drugs I’m gonna be the one you hold on to, just like you always do. Because when you get down from all that Pete-boy…” Johnny chuckled, the sound low and dirty “When you’re all clean but still hoping for that one hit? I’m going to be there and when I’m done with you, you aren’t gonna need drugs to get you high.”

Pete whimpered, not even realizing he’d tilted his head to the side until he felt Johnny’s teeth scrape against the sensitive skin.

“Now, I’m gonna ask you one thing,” Johnny murmured against his skin “And this is the kicker so listen close. Are. You. With. Me?”

Pete’s mouth opened to tell Johnny yes because he always told Johnny yes, anything to keep the other man’s attention where it was…on him for the first time ever but what came out wasn’t yes only a broken “Please,”

Johnny snorted “Good enough, Pete-boy. I’ll make a RocknRolla out of you, yet.”


End file.
